


I choose you

by MaplePaizley



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alex is a nervous lil bean, College AU, F/M, Hamliza, Modern AU, fluff fluff fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 05:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11913843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaplePaizley/pseuds/MaplePaizley
Summary: Alex would have happily stepped in front of a bus for Eliza if she had asked. Meeting her parents would be harder, but some things were unavoidable.





	I choose you

“Eliza, do we _really_ have to do this?” Alex groaned. They were waiting in the lobby of Eliza’s dorm for the Uber that was taking them to the obscenely fancy dinner that Alex had been dreading for weeks. The dinner where he was meeting Eliza’s parents, a bullet he had successfully dodged for almost six months. Eliza was trying to get him to relax, but he could tell that she was a little nervous too, as she fidgeted restlessly with the chain of her necklace. She looked particularly stunning tonight, Alex thought wistfully, in a short lilac dress that was not doing wonders for his focus, especially with the way the occasional drafts from the beaten up fan in the concierge’s booth made it flutter against her thighs.

 

“It’ll be fine”, Eliza said calmingly, running a hand up Alex’s back.

 

“You don’t know that”, he griped, twisting his tie in his hands. “What if they hate me?”

 

“They won’t.”

 

Alex sighed, understanding that this whole mess of a night was probably unavoidable. “What should I expect?”

 

Eliza bit her lip considering him. “They’re both really nice.” At Alex’s raised eyebrow she rolled her eyes. “Both a little snobby, maybe. My mom more so than my dad. If you stay close to him, you should be okay.”

 

“Fuck”, Alex groaned. “Your senator father is the _less_ intimidating one?”

 

Eliza snorted. “He already likes you because you’re actually interested in his job and you’re a registered Democrat. It’ll be hard to _not_ get him on your side.”

 

“Don’t Democrats make up the majority of your and your sisters’ dating pools?”

 

“Not always”, Eliza murmured thoughtfully. “Angie brought a Republican home once. I thought Dad was going to have a stroke.”

 

 _“Angelica_ dated a _Republican_?” Alex asked incredulously. He mentally filed that information away to tease her about later.

 

“Not seriously”, Eliza smiled. “I think she just wanted to get a rise out of them. That’s kind of her shtick.”

 

“Yeah I guess that makes sense”, Alex mused. Angelica was about as rebellious as a straight-lined student-government-involved-political-science-student-at-an-Ivy could be. “It just seems extreme, even for her.”

 

Eliza giggled. “The worst was when she went to Columbia instead of Harvard. My parents almost disowned her.” 

 

“I guess they still have Peggy for that?” Alex grinned, imagining the youngest Schuyler, with her overalls and Doc Martens and high ponytails fitting in with the straight-laced Ivy crowd that he and Angelica went to school with. He had never realized, before making it to Columbia, how many shades of _cream_ there were, or how many variants of argyle his classmates could attempt to pull off.

 

“Nah, she has her heart set on Vassar” Eliza chuckled. “We’re the two non-Ivy disappointments together.” Alex smiled at her gently. Eliza’s own brand of brilliance was quieter and more self-contained than Angelica’s, especially when she was so self-effacing in her comparisons between herself and her sister. He hadn’t even known, until Angelica told him in a stern reminder that Eliza was just as smart as he was, that she had been accepted to Brown, Cornell _and_ Princeton, but had fallen in love with what was originally her safety school.

 

He had been really into Angelica when he joined Columbia’s debate society as a freshman. She was beautiful, intimidating, wickedly intelligent and able to dismantle any argument in a matter of seconds, a talent that Alex couldn’t help but find oddly and enduringly sexy. As a junior, she shouldn’t have been obligated to give him a second of her time, or really, notice him at all, but Alex had made an obnoxious point of injecting his opinion into almost any issue they were studying, and eventually, her eyes had started glimmering with amusement instead of irritation. When Angelica had invited him to a loft party in SoHo, Alex had seen it as a tacit indication that she was interested in him as well. She had _seemed_ like she was flirting with him, brushing her hand carelessly against his arm, tossing her hair, and playfully debating the semantics of his hypothetical run for the exec board in the spring. Suddenly she had stopped cold, smiling somewhat resignedly, and grabbing his hand. “Come on”, she had said with a cheerful urgency. “I need you to meet someone.”

 

And she had introduced him to her little sister Eliza, going into her second year in clinical psychology at NYU, and Alex had never looked back.

 

“I’m glad you’re at NYU”, he murmured. “It’s a lot easier to get to than Rhode Island or Ithaca.”

 

Eliza wound her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a short kiss. “Me too. I’m glad Angelica dragged me to that party.” Alexander smirked a little at that. Knowing Eliza as well as he did now, he could appreciate what a feat it was to make her stay up past eleven, much less convince her to go to a party in downtown New York. Eliza raised an eyebrow at his grin, and pulled him against her more aggressively, knotting her hands in the front of his button-down shirt, one he had bought specifically for tonight. Alex responded instinctually, tangling one hand in her long dark hair and twining the other around her waist, tilting his head down to kiss her. At times like this, he mused, it was so easy to free-fall, lose himself in Eliza’s warmth, her smell, the feeling of her silky hair sliding through his fingers, and the tiny gasps she made when they broke apart for air. She pulled away first, leaning her head against his, giving a contented little sigh that melted Alex’s heart. He couldn’t have imagined, as focused as he’d been on school, that he would find someone that he relied on so much, who he was willing to cede some of his precious time to. Even Angelica, though Alex loved the discourse they shared, was never meant to be anything other than a hookup, some meaningless fun for the both of them. The longer he dated Eliza though, the more Alex felt himself relax, learn to take in each moment in a way that he previously hadn’t believed his brain was hardwired to do.

 

“How do you feel?” she asked quietly.

 

“Still nervous”, he muttered.

 

“Remember that Ange and Peggy will be there too”, Eliza reminded him. “And they both already like you a lot.”

 

Alex snorted. “Do you have actual proof that they like me? There were a variety of startlingly creative threats made against my person if I ever hurt you.”

 

Eliza playfully poked him. “If they didn’t like you, it wouldn’t have just been threats.”

 

“Comforting”, Alex grumbled.

 

“It should be”, Eliza replied. “Half my family already thinks you’re great, and Peg and Angie are seriously the harshest critics out of the four of them.” Alex looked dubious, and Eliza leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek. “Anyways”, she continued thoughtfully, “I couldn’t care less what they think.”

 

Alex shot her a skeptical look. “Really?”

 

Eliza shrugged. “I love you.”

 

Alex felt his heart expand, reminding him that he would happily step in front of a bus for his girlfriend. Sitting through a dinner with her parents would be harder, but he could do it for her. “I love you too, Betsey”, he murmured. “More than anything else.”

 

“And you know that my parents will adore you just because of that, right?” She asked concernedly, tucking a piece of hair that had fallen out of his ponytail behind his ear. “But their opinion doesn’t really matter.”

 

“Yes it does”, Alex said quietly.

 

“Why?” Eliza asked calmly, crossing her arms. She did this sometimes, became firm and authoritative when he was spiraling, a trick that he couldn’t believe worked as well as it did.

 

Alex raked his hand through his hair. As perceptive as Eliza was, there were some things that were impossible for her to understand. Like why her parents could be suspicious about the poor, Puerto Rican immigrant that their sweet, admittedly sometimes naïve daughter was dating. He sighed dejectedly. “Eliza….”

 

“I choose you”, Eliza said resolutely. “No matter what they think of you, that isn’t going to change.”

 

“It would be easier if they liked me though.”   


“And I wouldn’t have agreed to this dinner if I thought that they wouldn’t” Eliza smiled. “Alex, you’re brilliant and passionate and involved in the world around you. What’s not to like?”

 

He gave her a half-hearted grin, reaching for her hand. “Thank you”, he whispered.

 

She squeezed his hand gently. “Any time.”

 

“Love you.”

 

“Love _you_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and Kudos are super appreciated!


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